Jainzar

What happened to QR's 10% stake in LA? If they still have it, I am not so sure that LA leaves.

OH-LGG

Oneworld:
https://www.oneworld.com/news/2019-09-26-oneworld-statement-on-LATAM

DL also funding LATAM to leave oneworld.

So, Brazil with AY Value before it goes?

ffay005

This is sad. I have been planning to try their FRA-MAD for ages. I guess now would be the time.

Oh, and I also received AY+ points for an LA award ticket SCL-EZE. ^

intuition

South America is a white spot on my map and it would be interesting. However not in Y, and with a codeshare the upgrade paths is possibly even worse than with a AY-operated flight...

florens

Me too! Time for a Do?

intuition

Even getting there will be more difficult. From Europe there will be IB, but other routes will get pretty thin unless you want to go via NA. On southern hemisphere it is extremely poor. Between Australasia and SA there will now be only the lone QF SYD-SCL, with MEL and AKL cut-off/moved to ST. OW has nothing in in/out of Africa either

And thinking of it, OW is rather poor within Europe too, despite having 3 hubs. Unless you live in on of those three, doing intra-EU with OW is difficult.

WilcoRoger

While Africa indeed is very poorly served by OW, BA does fly to Africa and IN Africa (Comair) as do RJ and QR. Even QF and CX fly to Africa. With AT joining OW next year (?) the coverage should slightly improve

OW lost a lot in Europe with the demises of AB & MA.

spek

I'll join the club

spek

but we've got time till next year to got those flights. Interesting if the award seat possibilities are also already cut?

intuition

I'll admit having my BA-screen glasses on, filtering out all the harmful rays
But here I was mainly thinking about Africa services as a go-between for South America, ie in terms of how well the continent South America is served on OW.
An African OW hub (currently non-existent), would make sense for such traffic in say DKR or indeed in RAK with AT coming online as partner. And they do fly to places like GRU, making HEL-RAK-GRU just a few miles longer than a direct. I wonder how BA/IB will react to that competition...

RAK is a bad hub for intra -Africa though, except possibly LHR to the west, like ivory cost et al

This.
AB isn't terribly missed as an airline per se but the loss of a German hub and a Hungarian hub is a blow to the alliance. The void is filled with Star and point-to-point LCCs

miamiflyer8

Sad to see LA go from OW, used them quite a bit when I lived in SCL. I used to do SCL-JFK sometimes via LIM with a 2-3 day stopover in NYC and then take AY 006. Did the same on the return with one night somewhere in Jamaica (Queens). Also took the MAD-FRA once.

I will certainly not miss the LATAM crowd in the JFK Flagship Lounge. They can go disturb the peace in the T4 Delta SkyClub instead.

florens

I can see cheap one way for 90€ in Business (Z class) in January 2020. Flight times from FRA are 1925-2155. Would Fridays work? No flights on Saturdays and Sundays unfortunately.

Flights are on the following days only:

OH-LGG

HEL-FRA AY (Fri)
FRA-MAD LA (789) (Fri)
MAD-LHR IB (346) (Sat)
LHR-HEL AY (Sat)

florens

This. For those who hate Shitberia there is also BA 777.

24. or 31.1., would that work?

lkrt

Great itinerary! Will AY evening flight to FRA do or is it better to take the morning flight?